‘Russian bots’ outcry: Is Twitter cracking down on people who ‘challenge the status quo’?
RT | February 22, 2018
It seems that ‘the bots’ (especially the ‘Russian bots’) narrative is being used as a kind of defensive mechanism, journalist and human rights activist Mike Raddie told RT amid reports of a massive account purge on Twitter.
A crackdown on bot spam or dissent?
“The whole meme of the bots, especially the ‘Russian bots,’ is actually being used as a kind of defensive mechanism,” said Mike Raddie. “Whenever people criticize the corporate media in the West – we’ve done it with the Guardian – they come back and say, ‘oh, you’re part of a Russian bot army,’ or a typical question is, ‘what’s the weather like in St. Petersburg? Is it snowing in Moscow yet?’ So it’s a very useful meme for corporate journalists to deflect any kind of criticism, especially over hot topics such as Syria, Ukraine – things like this.”
A number of Twitter accounts are said to have been flagged over the past few days, in what many have speculated is part of the company’s efforts to clamp down on the much-touted army of Russian-controlled automated accounts, or “bots.” However, Twitter has yet to elaborate on the reported mass purge, which allegedly also targeted users with right-wing views – raising concerns of political censorship on the popular social media platform. The hashtag #TwitterLockOut began trending on the site shortly after the suspensions.
“If Twitter has begun this campaign of eliminating or blocking people that have different ideas than the company wants to portray or the message that they want to get out, I think it’s very harming to democracy and freedom of speech,” Christian Mancera, a lawyer and 2018 congressional candidate, told RT. “We have to keep every single channel of communication open, and just because a person has a conservative view doesn’t make that person an enemy, or make that person politically incorrect. So I hope that Twitter comes forward and clarifies.”
Although his own outlet’s Twitter account recently received a 12-hour suspension, allegedly for “criticizing a multi-billionaire,” Raddie suggested that most users who get hit with the ban hammer are likely victims of the company’s “crude algorithm,” and not singled out by an actual Twitter employee. However, he said the company’s recent behavior suggests that when Twitter “sees challenges, serious challenges, to the status quo, they’re likely to limit activity or even block accounts or delete accounts.”
Hunting for ‘Russian links’
Dragged in front of the US Senate last year as part of efforts to expose “Russian influence” in the 2016 presidential elections, Twitter initially revealed that it had identified 201 “Russia-linked” accounts operating on its platform. After Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) expressed disappointment in the anticlimactic findings, Twitter raised its figure to 36,746.
As part of its autumn crackdown, Twitter banned an account owned by an African-American political activist from Atlanta – allegedly for her “links” to Russia. “This whole suppression of voices in using this Russian scare tactic is just way too far,” Charlie Peach, who has absolutely no ties to Russia, told RT back in October.
“In my lifetime I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t remember the McCarthyism era, obviously, because I’m not that old, but my parents talked to me about it and things that were occurring at the time,” Peach told RT. “It ensures that the 1 percent continues to have a narrative and that anyone who opposes that are no longer allowed to speak. You look at CNN, MSNBC ‒ they gave us the Iraq War. This is what they do. The main media houses that run everything are the ones that continue to push the propaganda and make sure we’re shut down.”
In January, the US Senate Intelligence Committee published answers provided by Twitter, Facebook and Google in response to questions concerning Russia’s alleged use of social media to meddle with American democracy. In its written response, Twitter disclosed that it had identified nine accounts as being “potentially linked to Russia that promoted election-related, English-language content.” Of these nine nefarious accounts “potentially linked” to Russia, “the most significant use of advertising was by @RT_com and @RT_America. Those two accounts collectively ran 44 different ad campaigns, accounting for nearly all of the relevant advertising we reviewed,” according to Twitter. Conspicuously absent from Twitter’s written statement was the fact that the American tech giant traveled to Moscow to pitch a proposal for RT to spend huge sums on advertising for the US presidential election – an offer which RT declined.
‘Shadow ban’ controversy
More recently, in January, conservative journalism watchdog Project Veritas released undercover footage of current and former Twitter staff who appear to admit to silencing conservative voices using “shadow bans” – which block a user or their content from reaching a wider audience without their knowledge.
“We’re giving away an awful lot to these companies, but when they come out and publicly say they want to be the public forum for free speech, yet they’re censoring free speech and they are slanting what free speech can or cannot be heard, then there’s a problem,” Project Veritas executive director Russell Verney told RT.
Read more:
More Gun Violence: Let’s Look Beyond Politics
By Ron Paul | February 20, 2108
Another terrible school shooting took place in Parkland, Florida last week and unfortunately many politicians and pundits have used the tragedy – as they often do – to push their own agenda. Many will use the tragedy to argue that Americans should be prohibited from owning guns. As if anti-gun laws would dissuade a disturbed or violent individual intent on causing harm. Those intent on mass murder don’t obey gun laws.
It’s unfortunate that while many are quick to demand that guns be taken away from peaceful Americans, they don’t seem to have much to say about guns when they’re in the hands of government authorities shooting innocent people. If we need any gun control, it is to get control of the guns in the hands of thousands of government employees who use them against innocent people with impunity.
For example, why do those calling for more gun control remain silent when armed federal agents raid Amish farms to stop them from selling raw milk? This shows the hypocrisy of those who call for restrictions on private firearms ownership while supporting the use of government violence as a means of controlling our lives.
Unfortunately there are many key questions lost in the race to score political points from the shooting.
Why does it always seem that the shooter in these mass killings has been on some kind of psychotropic drugs? As the New American magazine pointed out this week, at least ten high profile mass shootings have been committed by individuals who “were either on — or just recently coming off of — psychiatric medications.” The young killer in Florida was no different. According to his aunt, he had been on these medications to treat mental problems.
Why is no one questioning these medications – all of which come with labels warning of horrific side effects? Perhaps one reason they are ignored is that the pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars lobbying Congress.
Also, how is it possible that the FBI once again missed so many obvious clues that a violent person intent on causing massive harm to others was about to strike? Is the FBI actually this incompetent, or perhaps its focus was in other areas — like meddling in our own elections by presenting “evidence” they knew was flawed to the FISA court to get permission to spy on the Trump campaign?
We’ve heard many stories of how alert FBI field agents tried to alert their bosses before 9/11 that foreigners were taking flight lessons but were not interested in learning how to land the planes.
Is giving the federal government more power to spy on us – as they demand – the answer to stop these terrible crimes? Hardly!
Those who think that giving federal authorities greater surveillance powers might prevent mass shootings should consider that the FBI has been alerted that the latest school shooter had made Facebook posts and YouTube comments talking about his intention to be, as he put it, “a professional school shooter.” But the Bureau failed to properly investigate the tips. If the FBI fails to stop someone who openly boasts about their intentions on social media why should we believe that giving them the power to snoop on every American would increase our safety?
We cannot stop tragedies like this by banning guns. We need to look seriously into the psychotropic drugs that more and more Americans are being prescribed. We need to demand that our elected Representatives demand a real day of reckoning at the FBI. We need to keep focused and ignore those who politicize such events.
Nunes: FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial
By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | February 19, 2018
Throwing down the gauntlet on alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the Department of Justice and the FBI, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) stated that there could be legal consequences for officials who may have misled the FISA court. “If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial,” he said. “The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created.”
Devin Nunes interview with Sharyl Attkisson
Nunes took this highly unusual, no-holds-barred stance during an interview with Emmy-award winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, which aired on Sunday.
Attkisson said she had invited both Nunes and House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) but that only Nunes agreed. She asked him about Schiff’s charge that Nunes’ goal was “to put the FBI and DOJ on trial.” What followed was very atypical bluntness — candor normally considered quite unacceptable in polite circles of the Washington Establishment.
Rather than play the diplomat and disavow what Schiff contended was Nunes’ goal, Nunes said, in effect, let the chips fall where they may. He unapologetically averred that, yes, a criminal trial might well be the outcome. “DOJ and FBI are not above the law,” he stated emphatically. “If they are committing abuse before a secret court getting warrants on American citizens, you’re darn right that we’re going to put them on trial.”
Die Is Cast
The stakes are very high. Current and former senior officials — and not only from DOJ and FBI, but from other agencies like the CIA and NSA, whom documents and testimony show were involved in providing faulty information to justify a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign official Carter Page — may suddenly find themselves in considerable legal jeopardy. Like, felony territory.
This was not supposed to happen. Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? Back when the FISA surveillance warrant of Page was obtained, just weeks before the November 2016 election, there seemed to be no need to hide tracks, because, even if these extracurricular activities were discovered, the perps would have looked forward to award certificates rather than legal problems under a Trump presidency.
Thus, the knives will be coming out. Mostly because the mainstream media will make a major effort – together with Schiff-mates in the Democratic Party – to marginalize Nunes, those who find themselves in jeopardy can be expected to push back strongly.
If past is precedent, they will be confident that, with their powerful allies within the FBI/DOJ/CIA “Deep State” they will be able to counter Nunes and show him and the other congressional investigation committee chairs, where the power lies. The conventional wisdom is that Nunes and the others have bit off far more than they can chew. And the odds do not favor folks, including oversight committee chairs, who buck the system.
Staying Power
On the other hand, the presumptive perps have not run into a chairman like Nunes in four decades, since Congressmen Lucien Nedzi (D-Mich.), Otis Pike (D-NY), and Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) ran tough, explosive hearings on the abuses of a previous generation deep state, including massive domestic spying revealed by quintessential investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in December 1974. (Actually, this is largely why the congressional intelligence oversight committees were later established, and why the FISA law was passed in 1978.)
At this point, one is tempted to say plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – or the more things change, the more they stay the same – but that would be only half correct in this context. Yes, scoundrels will always take liberties with the law to spy on others. But the huge difference today is that mainstream media have no room for those who uncover government crimes and abuse. And this will be a major impediment to efforts by Nunes and other committee chairs to inform the public.
One glaring sign of the media’s unwillingness to displease corporate masters and Official Washington is the harsh reality that Hersh’s most recent explosive investigations, using his large array of government sources to explore front-burner issues, have not been able to find a home in any English-speaking newspaper or journal. In a sense, this provides what might be called a “confidence-building” factor, giving some assurance to deep-state perps that they will be able to ride this out, and that congressional committee chairs will once again learn to know their (subservient) place.
Much will depend on whether top DOJ and FBI officials can bring themselves to reverse course and give priority to the oath they took to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. This should not be too much to hope for, but it will require uncommon courage in facing up honestly to the major misdeeds appear to have occurred — and letting the chips fall where they may. Besides, it would be the right thing to do.
Nunes is projecting calm confidence that once he and Trey Gowdey (R-Tenn.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, release documentary evidence showing what their investigations have turned up, it will be hard for DOJ and FBI officials to dissimulate.
In Other News …
In the interview with Attkisson, Nunes covered a number of other significant issues:
- The committee is closing down its investigation into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign; no evidence of collusion was found.
- The apparently widespread practice of “unmasking” the identities of Americans under surveillance. On this point, Nunes said, “In the last administration they were unmasking hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of Americans’ names. They were unmasking for what I would say, for lack of a better definition, were for political purposes.”
- Asked about Schiff’s criticism that Nunes behaved improperly on what he called the “midnight run to the White House,” Nunes responded that the stories were untrue. “Well, most of the time I ignore political nonsense in this town,” he said. “What I will say is that all of those stories were totally fake from the beginning.”
Not since Watergate has there been so high a degree of political tension here in Washington but the stakes for our Republic are even higher this time. Assuming abuse of FISA court procedures is documented and those responsible for playing fast and loose with the required justification for legal warrants are not held to account, the division of powers enshrined in the Constitution will be in peril.
A denouement of some kind can be expected in the coming months. Stay tuned.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Washington Post Editorial Writer Disturbed to Discover the Importance of Precedent in Court Decisions
Charles Lane Continues Attack on Unions
CEPR | February 15, 2018
The Washington Post has long had a hostile attitude toward unions, which it expresses in both its opinion and news sections. (As an example of the latter, this front page article complaining about high pensions for public sector workers in California, highlighted the case of Bruce Malkenhorst Sr., a retired city administrator, who received a pension of more than $500,000 a year. Only after reading down in the piece do readers discover that Mr. Malkenhorst was awaiting trial for misusing public funds. Of course, as an administrator, he was not a typical public employee or a union member.)
The latest expression of hostility is from editorial writer Charles Lane. Lane is upset that public sector employees can be required to pay representation fees to the unions that represent them as a condition of working in a unit that is represented by a union. There is much about the current situation that draws his wrath.
First, he complains that the unions arguing the case currently before the Supreme Court are citing the precedent of a prior ruling supporting this practice. Apparently, Lane didn’t realize that US courts are governed by precedent.
Lane then makes the argument that there is a serious problem with public sector unions collecting representation fees and dues (dues are paid only by those who choose to join the union), which come out of their paychecks, and then use some of this money to support their favored political candidates. (Only dues can be used for political campaigns, not representation fees, which can only be used for the cost of running the union.)
Lane argues that this creates a conflict of interest because the government is effectively paying money to unions, who then support candidates that are favorable to the union. It’s not clear how this is different from government contractors who give campaign contributions to candidates who support giving them government contracts, or from oil companies who give campaign contributions to candidates who give them favorable access to government land, or from drug companies who give campaign contributions to candidates who will give them stronger and longer patent monopolies on their drugs.
For some reason, Lane thinks we should be troubled by workers who get a public sector paycheck supporting candidates who represent their interests. When private corporations use profits derived from government actions to support candidates who will increase their profits further, this is fine.
Of course, the immediate issue before the court is whether the government can sign a contract with a union that requires that everyone who benefits from union representation has to share in the cost of the representation. Lane wants to deny workers the right to have a contract that imposes conditions on their co-workers.
Interestingly, the court has explicitly gone the other way in allowing employers to impose terms on their employees with which they may not agree. In the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court ruled that a company can require its workers to have insurance that does not cover contraceptives if the company’s owners have a religious objection to the use of contraceptives. In this case, the remedy for workers who believe that it is important that contraceptives be covered by insurance is to work somewhere else.
Under current law, companies can impose all sorts of conditions on their workers, such as wearing stupid hats, smiling at customers and giving overly friendly greetings, and even having insurance that comports with the boss’s religious beliefs. But Lane wants us to think that it interferes with workers’ individual freedom if their co-workers vote to put any conditions on employment.
Rachel Notley’s Alliance with the Enemies of Tenure, Peer Review, and Academic Freedom at Alberta’s Universities
Premier Rachel Notley. Image credit: Premier of Alberta/ flickr
An Open Letter to the NDP Premier of Alberta from Prof. Tony Hall | February 17, 2018
Dear Premier Rachel Notley;
I am writing you this open letter to defend myself against your attack on me personally and professionally. What is the evidentiary basis behind your characterization of my academic work as “repulsive, offensive and not reflective of Alberta”? Why have you decided to set yourself up, Premier Notley, as some sort of arbitrator of what scholarly work in Alberta universities meets the criteria of being “reflective of Alberta”?
Is your opinion about what is or is not reflective of Alberta to become a new test of how curriculum will be created and how faculty members will be chosen in this province? What lies behind your decision to disseminate a caricature of me “standing at the head of the class” in order to “spread lies and conspiracy theories”? [1]
Since I began teaching in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of Lethbridge in 1990, I have never once seen in a student evaluation that reflects the kind of accusations you are pressing publicly on me. How is it you think you know more about me, including and what goes on in my classroom, than my own students?
After a year and a half of being subject to a ruthless trial-by-media, a new process is only now being initiated that from my perspective allows me to come forward for the first time to tell my side of the story before an investigating tribunal operating within the terms of our collective agreement. The process is going forward because of a court contestation that the U of L Board of Governors lost due to its unwillingness to adhere to the laws of labour relations in Alberta. Whose advice was the Board depending on when its members put themselves in such an untenable position?
Before we have even started the process that has come about because of the determined stand of the University of Lethbridge Faculty Association (ULFA) and the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), you, Premier Notley, chose to inject a politicized salvo into the onslaught of vituperation against me that began on Aug. 26 of 2016.
Here is how the University of Lethbridge Faculty Association described your ill-advised political intervention:
15 Jan., 2018
Re: Premier’s statement re Anthony HallThe Faculty Association wishes to express its disappointment in the Premier’s words. As the union that represents Professor Hall in his employment relationship with the University of Lethbridge, the Faculty Association has endeavoured to have a fair and objective process employed for adjudicating Professor Hall’s academic scholarship and accountability through procedures in the collective agreement. We finally achieved this following significant effort and cost on our part and have a great deal of confidence in the appropriate academic procedures to which Professor Hall is now subject.
Having the Premier draw conclusions about the acceptability of Professor Hall’s academic work prior to any decision rendered by an expert panel of qualified academics has the potential to undermine this very process we have fought to achieve. At worse, though, these words have the real potential to bias the outcome of any such fair and objective process.
The Faculty Association has greatly appreciated the hard work the Premier and her government have done to advance the rights of post-secondary labour. We believe it is a dangerous precedent, however, for elected officials to intervene so directly in a complex labour matter such as this one.Sincerely,
Andrea Amelinckx,
ULFA PresidentCc Honourable Minister M Schmidt
One of the core points I intend to bring forward in my self- defense in the forthcoming process, is to describe the mounting of a negative media campaign against me based on the atrocious contents of a maliciously-engineered Facebook post. According to B’nai Brith Canada, the core agency in orchestrating this media deception, the post appeared on, and then disappeared from, my Facebook wall during an interval of a few hours on Aug. 26, 2016. I did not invite this digital item onto my Facebook wall. I did not sanction its abhorrent contents. In fact I condemned the post’s contents publicly in mid-Sept. when I first became aware of the digital item and the way that it was being deployed to destroy my reputation.
You, Premier Notley, were presented with a deceptive account of my relationship to the Facebook post long before I even knew about the B’nai Brith Canada operation. Recently I learned from the results of a FOIP investigation of the Alberta Ministry of Justice that on Aug. 27, 2016 you and other Alberta cabinet ministers were sent a slanderous account of the Facebook post as if it “came from my lips.” People in the inner circle of your office reported you had seen the communication that slanderously misrepresented me as an “advocate for the murder of Jews.”
If you would actually take a genuine interest in my academic work, Premier Notley, you would realize I have a record of studying all sorts of genocide and condemning this crime against humanity in all its manifestations, including the Jewish Shoah. [2]
Perhaps the people who lied to you about me in late August of 2016 are still holding you captive in terms of filtering the information that has caused you to think whatever it is you believe you know about me. The President of the University of Lethbridge, Dr. Michael J. Mahon, went along with the Facebook deception to suspend this tenured full professor on Oct. 3 and 4, 2016. I was pulled from the classroom in mid-term and banned from stepping foot on campus. This purge took place entirely outside the terms of the collective agreement between the university’s faculty and administration.
This suspension initially without pay essentially declared me guilty until proven innocent. Severe punitive measures were imposed on me all without even an ounce of adjudication by a neutral third-party. From the correspondence I have been receiving from all over the world, I can say my suspension quickly became a shot heard throughout the global academic realm, a shot signaling that an Albertan university is leading an attack on the institutions of tenure, peer review and academic freedom.
Now you have joined in that attack too Premier Notley. You have allied yourself with the position of B’nai Brith Canada, the organization that recently interfered in the leadership race for the new leader of the federal NDP. The same people that set in motion the trial-by-media aimed at me attacked the NDP leadership candidate, Niki Ashton. According to B’nai Brith’s CEO Michael Mostyn, Ms. Ashton’s concern for the violated human rights of Palestinians people made her “an advocate for vile terrorists” and “convicted murders.” It revealed Ms. Ashton’s “defective moral compass.” [3]
What is your view, Premier Notley, of the condemnation directed at the new NDP federal leader, Jagmeet Singh, when B’nai Brith Canada took aim at him for intervening to provide a venue at the Ontario provincial legislature for a presentation by academic advocates of the rights of educator Nadia Shoufani. The condemnation came in late Augusts of 2016 when Mr. Singh was MLA for the riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton and Deputy Leader of the Ontario NDP.
At the same time as it was attacking Jagmeet Singh, B’nai Brith Canada was leading the effort to have Ms. Shofani, a Canadian of Palestinian and Christian background, criminalized by police and fired from her teaching job in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board. The criticisms directed at Ms. Shoufani are similar to those directed at Ms. Ashton. Similarly, the effort to criminalize Ms. Shoufani and bar her from the classroom anticipated the similar treatment to which I was about to be subjected. The attack on Ms. Shoufani’s job and her reputation was based on allegations about her supposed “terror-supporting remarks” made in a Quds Day speech in Toronto in July of 2016. [4]
It seems, Premier Notley, your political intervention on the wrong side of the University of Lethbridge case reflects your reactionary alliance with the thought police and speech police at B’nai Brith Canada. Your reactionary stance identifies you with the backward policies of former NDP leader, Tom Mulcair, when he purged pro-Palestinian candidates from the federal election of 2015. This atrocious move was in all probably a significant factor in the disappointing electoral showing of the NDP as it lost its position of Canada’s Official Opposition Party. [5]
Now in Feb. of 2018 B’nai Brith Canada has resumed its efforts to quarterback the NDP, lobbying aggressively to stop a resolution from being put on the floor of the recent NDP convention. The vote, neverthess, was close, 189 for putting the resolution forward and 200 for sidelining it. The resolution included provisions on a Canadian boycott against products produced in the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank.
Those supporting the boycott resolution included the unanimous support of the Young New Democrats, 28 electoral riding associations covering six provinces and many current and former MPs. Geneviève Nevin, a supporter of the resolution from Victoria, observed, “There’s a generational divide on this issue.” In his account of this divide within the NDP, journalist Derrick O’Keefe suggested Jagmeet Singh would be wise to look to the example of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. Mr. Corbyn has mobilized on behalf of the Labour Party considerable electoral support from his attentiveness to the plight of Palestinian people under Israeli occupation. [6]
By siding so strongly, Premier Notley, with the U of L administration’s collaboration with the Isreal lobby including B’nai Brith Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, you have identified yourself and your government with agencies that condemned Hassan Diab wrongly as a terrorist. B’nai Brith Canada played a major role in calling for pulling the sociology teacher from his Carleton University classroom in Ottawa. This intervention helped set in notion a miscarriage of justice that saw the Lebanese Canadian academic incarcerated for a decade in Canada and France for a crime he didn’t commit. [7]
You have identified yourself and your government, Premier Notley, with notorious enemies of academic freedom who brought forward during the 50th anniversary of York University all sorts of false allegations much like those I am facing now. This fiasco unfolded when B’nai Brith Canada, the CIJA, the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Defence League tried to shut down an academic conference on Israel/ Palestine at York University in 2009.
The effort to sabotage this academic initiative was foiled because the York University President, Mamdou Shoukiri, and the York University Board of Governors stood up for the imperatives of academic freedom. [8]
In 2018 in Alberta the equation is very different. The President and Board of University of Lethbridge have adopted the position of the Israel lobby. Now Premier Notley, you have intervened to strengthen this political coalition favouring the stifling of fee and open at Alberta universities. Please consider revisiting you provocative and intellectually bankrupt position on this matter.
Yours Sincerely,
Anthony J. Hall
Professor of Globalization Studies,
University of Lethbridge
Endnotes
[1] Chuck Millar’s Letter to the Alberta Premier—11 January, 2018 at
https://academicfreedomanthonyhall.ca/chuck-millars-letter-to-the-premier-january-11-2018/
Premier Notley indicated on November 24, 2017
There is no question that the views of this individual are repulsive, offensive and not reflective of Alberta. Our classrooms are a place for freedom of speech and expression but that does not mean individuals get to stand at the head of the class and spread lies and conspiracy theories. I am terribly disappointed to learn that this individual has been reinstated, but let me be clear that legislation that our government introduced did not give him his job back. I can confirm that this individual is now under investigation by a committee at the University.”
[2] See, for instance Hall, Earth into Property” Colonization, Decolonization, and Capitalism (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), Chapter 14, “Genocide and Global Capitalism,” pp. 655-711
[3] Tony Hall, “Palestinians, B’nai Brith and Canada’s New Democratic Party, Canadian Dimension, 30 July, 2017 at
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/palestinians-bnai-brith-and-canadas-new-democratic-party
[4] B’nai Brith Canada, “NDP Deputy Leader Facilitates Pro-Shoufani Press Conference at Queen’s Park,” 24 Aug., 2016 at
http://www.bnaibrith.ca/ndp_deputy_leader_facilitates_pro_shoufani_press_conference_at_queen_s_park
[5] Marion Kawas, “New Democratic Party Purges Candidates over pro-Palestinian positions in lead up to Canadian elections, Mondoweiss, 24 Aug., 2015 at
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/democratic-candidates-positions/
[6] Derick O’Keefe, “Palestinian Resolution Narrowly Stopped from Hitting NDP Convention Floor, Richochet, 16 Feb. 2018 at
[7] Judy Haven, “After 10 Years Hassan Diab is Finally Free,” Independent Jewish Voices Canada, at
http://ijvcanada.org/2018/diab-is-finally-free/
[8] Susan G. Drummong, Unthinkable Thoughts, Academic Freedom and the One-State Solution for Israel and Palestine (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014); Jon Thompson, No Debate: The Israel lobby and free speech in Canadian universities (Toronto: Lorimer, 2011)
***
Dr. Hall is editor in chief of American Herald Tribune. He is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.
Public hearing and written comments on draft registration
By Ed Hasbrouk | The Practical Nomad | February 16, 2018
For the first time in decades, a Federal commission is holding open-mike public hearings throughout the USA (starting next Friday, 23 February 2018, in Harrisburg, PA) and taking written testimony (through 19 April 2018, Patriots’ Day) on whether draft registration should be ended or extended to women as well as men; whether there should be a draft of people with medical or other special skills regardless of age or gender; whether a draft would be “feasible” (it wouldn’t, because so many people haven’t registered with the Selective Service System, have moved without notifying the SSS, and/or would resist if drafted); and related issues.
Despite some problems, this is by far your best and most open opportunity in decades to tell the Federal government to end draft registration.
In late 2015, Commander-In-Chief Obama ordered all military assignments opened to women. That order undercut, and probably eliminated, the legal argument that had been used since 1980 to justify requiring only men, but not women, to register for the draft.
That gave members of Congress three options, none of which most of them wanted to take responsibility for, in the run-up to the 2016 elections:
- Do nothing and wait for courts to invalidate the requirement for men to register for the draft;
- Repeal the requirement for men to register, and abolish the Selective Service System (and risk being attacked as peaceniks); or
- Extend the requirement to register for the draft to women as well as men (and risk being attacked by both feminists and sexists).
After elaborate bi-partisan machinations, Congress chose Door Number One (“Do Nothing”). Perhaps members of Congress thought that would allow them to point the finger of “blame” at the courts, and away from themselves, if draft registration was ended. More likely they just wanted to punt this political hot potato past the 2016 elections into the Clinton or Trump Administration.
To provide further political cover for delaying its decision, Congress voted in late 2016 to establish a National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service “to conduct a review of the military selective service process (commonly referred to as ‘the draft’).” The Commission is required to solicit and consider public comments, and to report back to the President and Congress with its recommendations by March 2020 (at which time its recommendations can either be ignored, used, or abused to score points in 2020 election campaigns).
That Commission has now been appointed and held its first public meeting on 18 January 2018.
Today the Commission published:
- A notice in the Federal Register soliciting written comments (by a Web form or by e-mail to “national.commission.on.service.info@mail.mil”, mentioning “Docket No. 05-2018-01” in the subject) though 19 April 2018; and
- An announcement on the Commission’s Web site of a first public hearing, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. next Friday, 23 February 2018, at the Harrisburg Area Community College, Midtown Trade and Technology Center, Midtown 2, Room 206, 1500 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg, PA.
Pass the word to any of your contacts who might be able to make it to Harrisburg that day.
It’s unclear how the Commission’s hearings will be conducted. So far as I can tell from the announcement it appears that at least the first hearing will be a first-come, first-served, open microphone event, although I have no idea how much time each speaker will be allowed.
The law establishing the Commission requires that:
The Commission shall conduct hearings on the recommendations it is taking under consideration. Any such hearing, except a hearing in which classified information is to be considered, shall be open to the public. Any hearing open to the public shall be announced on a Federal website at least 14 days in advance. For all hearings open to the public, the Commission shall release an agenda and a listing of materials relevant to the topics to be discussed.
The Commission’s first planned hearing in Harrisburg, PA, on 23 February 2018, was announced on the Commission’s Insprire2Serve.gov Web site on February 16th, only seven days in advance. The Commission appears to be in flagrant violation of the statutory requirement for 14 days’ notice, and the hearing in Harrisburg, if it is held on February 23rd, will be unlawful. As of a week before the planned hearing, no agenda has been released.
Members of the Commission have said it plans to hold public hearings in each of the nine US Census regions over the next two years, but none of the other dates and locations have been announced yet.
Mueller’s Investigation A Farce: Files Joke Indictment Against Russian Trolls
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
By Elizabeth Vos | Disobedient Media | February 16, 2018
If one needed proof that Mueller’s investigation was an utter farce, they were in for a treat this morning when the Deputy Attorney General announced the indictment of indicted 13 “Russian trolls,” for allegedly interfering in the 2016 Presidential election by posting on social media accounts.
Laying Mueller’s disregard of the First Amendment aside, the indictment is blatantly hypocritical in light of active social media intervention by pro-Clinton David Brock and his multi-million dollar efforts to ‘Correct The Record.’
The indictment alleges that: “Beginning in or around June 2014, the ORGANIZATION obscured its conduct by operating through a number of Russian entities, including Internet Research LLC, MediaSintez LLC, GlavSet LLC, MixInfo LLC, Azimut LLC, and NovInfo LLC.”
The indictment further alleges that: “The ORGANIZATION sought, in part, to conduct what it called information warfare against the United States of America through fictitious U.S. personas on social media platforms and other Internet-based media.”
According to the indictment, the co-conspirators “engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”
The indictment represents the latest mutation of Russian interference allegations that have dragged on for over a year. As this author previously noted, the definition of Russian interference has mutated from unsubstantiated claims of Russian hacking, to Russian collusion, and finally to Russian social media trolling.
The Washington Post reported in 2015 that David Brock’s Correct The Record would work directly with the Clinton Campaign, “testing the legal limits” of campaign finance in the process. How did Correct The Record skirt campaign finance law? The Washington Post tells us: “by relying on a 2006 Federal Election Commission regulation that declared that content posted online for free, such as blogs, is off-limits from regulation.” And post online, Brock’s PAC did: “disseminating information about Clinton on its Web site and through its Facebook and Twitter accounts, officials said.”
Time reported the opinion of a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center who characterized Correct The Record as: “creating new ways to undermine campaign regulation.” Meanwhile, The New York Times detailed the “outrage machine” that Brock and fellow Clinton supporter Peter Daou had created:
“Peter Daou sat with his team at a long wooden table last week, pushing the buttons that activate Mrs. Clinton’s outrage machine. Mr. Daou’s operation, called Shareblue, had published the article on Mr. Trump’s comment on its website and created the accompanying hashtag.“They will put that pressure right on the media outlets in a very intense way,” Mr. Daou, the chief executive of Shareblue, said of the Twitter army he had galvanized. “By the thousands.”
Going further, the New York Times details fervently the $2 million budget of Daou’s Shareblue and admits that the intent of the entire operation is interference in the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton: “Beyond creating a boisterous echo chamber, the real metric of success for Shareblue, which Mr. Brock said has a budget of $2 million supplied by his political donors, is getting Mrs. Clinton elected. Mr. Daou’s role is deploying a band of committed, outraged followers to harangue Mrs. Clinton’s opponents.”
The New York Daily News put the matter most bluntly: “Hillary Clinton camp now paying online trolls to attack anyone who disparages her online.” The LA Times described the active election interference: “It is meant to appear to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid and highly tactical.”
Despite the millions of dollars poured into a pro-Clinton ‘outrage machine’ bent on her support, Clinton inexplicably lost the election to Donald Trump, a fact which still seems not to have sunk in for the former First Lady and Secretary of State.
But why bring up this apparently old news, in the face of Mueller’s latest mockery of the American judicial process and the First Amendment? Because it reveals in the words of the legacy press that by definition Mueller’s circus has zero interest in campaign or election integrity and is solely interested in getting scalps for Clinton and for the unelected powers she represented.
Despite obvious hypocrisy given the actions of Shareblue and David Brock’s Correct The Record, corporate media ignored all double standards and attempted to report on “Russian twitter trolling” with a straight face. Business Insider wrote: “Russian Twitter Trolls Tried To Bury Or Spin Negative Trump News Just Before Election,” as if that wasn’t what Correct The Record spent millions on doing for the benefit of Clinton.
The double standards applied to Clinton for her benefit goes beyond hypocrisy. Many have claimed that constantly metamorphosing allegations of Russian interference represents an insidious effort to silence dissent and anti-establishment political discourse: for example, by turning third-party, anti-establishment or conservative voices into “Russians” by proxy of their opposition to Clinton.
By converting legitimate American free speech into insidious “Russian bots,” a pretext is created to silence dissent across the board. Without the Russian interference circus, the efforts to breach the First Amendment would be overtly authoritarian and would be inexcusable even by the most corrupt establishment media standards.
The results of such a clamp-down on free and effective speech have manifested in censorship crackdowns across large social media platforms including Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook, with Twitter admitting to actively censoring roughly 48% of tweets that included the “#DNCEmails” hashtag. It seems anyone with an opinion the establishment doesn’t like is liable to be memory-holed.
Macron vows to bring back ‘compulsory’ national service for French youth
RT | February 14, 2018
Two decades after France scrapped compulsory military service, President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to introduce “obligatory” national service for all young people. It could also be a “civic engagement,” Macron said.
“I want a mandatory service, open to women and men,” the French leader said on Tuesday, adding that its duration could be “around three months” but could be “longer if we integrate a civic service.” The president said the service will include “a mandatory part [set to last] between three and six months, which is not yet established.”
The whole thing is “not about recreating massive barracks,” Macron noted, however.
The planned service “will be universal, will involve the entire age group, and will be mandatory,” government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux confirmed in an interview with Radio Classique earlier on Tuesday.
A taskforce has been created to come up with suggestions on how to implement the French leader’s plan by the end of April.
Eyebrows were raised when Macron promised during his campaign, in March 2017, to restore a “mandatory national universal service,” designed to last one month and to involve between 600,000 to 800,000 youngsters per year. This “universal military service” would have to be taken by people aged between 18 and 21 years old, he specified at the time.
Macron promised that, if elected, he would make all young people spend a month receiving “a direct experience of military life with its know-how and demands.”
“The universal national service will be a school of fraternity. It’s about giving our youth an opportunity to come together for a common goal, breaking down all social barriers,” Macron tweeted last month.
While opposition parties warned of the costs involved in training up hundreds of thousands of youngsters a year, Macron’s proposal also raised concerns in the army, stretched thin by anti-terrorism operations in the Middle East and enhanced patrols against threats at home.
Last week, Defense Minister Florence Parly cast doubt on the scope of Macron’s plan, saying it would “probably not be obligatory.”
“It will be a service that will seek to make it attractive for young to take part in…for what they learn and for what they can give to others,” she said.
France’s defense budget will increase by €1.7 billion (US$2.1 billion) a year between 2019 and 2022, the Armed Forces Ministry said earlier this month, confirming spending commitments outlined by Macron last year, Reuters reported.
From 2023, the increase is set to rise to €3 billion annually so that France can hit its NATO-agreed target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense by 2025.
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Canadian judge dismisses all charges in lawsuit brought against Dr. Tim Ball by BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver
Dr. Ball note to Climate Depot – February 13, 2018:
There are no media reports and my guess is there won’t be any.
At 0930 on the day the trial started we were told there was no judge or courtroom assigned. Amazingly and incorrectly, that information was reported almost immediately on media claiming the trial was postponed. It wasn’t, because by 1100 a judge and courtroom were assigned and the trail began at 1130. The postponement story likely explained why no media attended a single day of the three week trial. The nature of the case that involves a so-called climate change denier will likely also be ignored.
The trial was the only one adjudicated so far of the three lawsuits I received from the same lawyer, Roger McConchie, on behalf of three individuals all members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The first was filed on behalf of Gordon McBean, a former Assistant Deputy Minister at Environment Canada. He chaired the founding meeting of the IPCC in 1985.
The second was from Professor Andrew Weaver computer modeller and author on four of the IPCC Reports (1995, 2001, 2007 and 2013).
The third, filed nine days after the Weaver trial, was on behalf of Michael Mann, whose “hockey stick” graph dominated the 2001 IPCC Report and became what Professor Ross McKitrick called the “poster child of global warming.
McConchie also filed lawsuits against the publication in each case, which created confusion and conflict as they wanted to settle.
In the McBean case my wife and I decided not to fight because of the legal cost involved. We simply withdrew the article.
When we received the Weaver lawsuit we decided we would not be bullied into silence by what we considered to be SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) and spent all our savings on legal fees before John O’Sullivan helped us set up a web site and a Paypal donation tab.
We later learned that the publication, Canada Free Press (CFP), had accepted and published an apology written by McConchie. I was not consulted or even informed that this was happening. Meanwhile we had hired Michael Scherr, a defamation lawyer with Pearlman Lindholm in Victoria BC.
The Mann trial was scheduled for February 20, 2017. About a month before the trial, Mann requested an adjournment. Apparently Canadian courts always grant an adjournment before a trial begins in the hope of an out-of-court settlement. I was opposed but had little choice.
The Mann case is interesting because it was filed in the supreme Court of British Columbia (BC) by an American citizen from Pennsylvania about something I said after a public presentation about the deception of manmade global warming in Winnipeg, Manitoba. BC had anti-SLAPP legislation but for some reason cancelled it. Now only two of ten Canadian Provinces, the other is Ontario, do not have anti-SLAPP legislation.
By the summer of 2017 a date for the Weaver trial was set and it was held in November over three weeks in Vancouver, Canada. Between filing the lawsuit and commencement of the trial, Weaver was elected as a Green Party member for the BC Legislature. At the trial he was the Green Party leader in his second term. The theme of the article he sued me for defamation involved the claim that the political hijacking of climatology by the IPCC set back climate research and understanding by 30 years. In the article I made comments about an interview and experience I had with Weaver that I did not fully substantiate. I wrote a letter of apology for those unsubstantiated comments but not for the overall claims of the article. Weaver posted my letter of apology on what he labelled a “wall of hate” in his University office. It appears just under his left arm in the photo at the link below.
Here is a newspaper article that shows Weaver in front of his wall of hate, apparently designed to show who and how nasty the attacks he sustained because of his views on global warming and attempts to save the planet.
The judge ruled that Weaver was not defamed by me and dismissed the claim completely. This was after almost seven years and thousands of dollars in legal costs.
Now we prepare to bring the Mann case back to the court.
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From the Archives
The great ADHD swindle
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
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